The Brotherhood Means Business
by Beastbot X
Summary: Mystique's back, and she's done playing games with the Brotherhood. Of course, this isn't good news for the X Men... Fifth in my X Men: Evolution series.
1. Chapter 1

"The Brotherhood Means Business, Part I"

by Beastbot

"You both are SURE you know what to do, then?"

"No problem."

"It's not like we haven't gone over it twelve times, mate."

"Alright, then, move! I'll enter via the front gate, and we'll rendezvous on the bank of the river a few miles directly south from here, next to the oak tree that's split in half. Go, go!"

* * *

"Hey, Lance?"

Lance sighed. "What is it THIS time, Toad? Can't we all just get to sleep already?"

"Pietro's book-readin' is keepin' me up."

"I'm being as quiet as I can! Geez, Toad, am I flipping the pages too loudly for you?!"

"Well, you're just flipping 'em five times a second, is all."

"I read fast, you know that! And I can't help it if I don't sleep!"

"Whatever. Anyway, Lance?"

"What!?"

"I was just thinking… how come there ain't any fat chicks in Bayville, yo?"

* * *

"Alright, you can go home. I'm here to take your place," said an approaching jail guard, unexceptional in his appearance in every way.

"About time!" grumbled the jail guard on duty at the main gate. "My shift was supposed to end half an hour ago!"

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that," the other guard apologized. "There was… some bad traffic on I-85 coming in."

"At this time 'a night? What's going on?"

"Some big car crash, it looked like. At least a dozen cars, piled up. It'll take 'em the rest of the night to clean up the mess, I'd imagine. You might want to take the side roads home."

"Well, thanks for the heads-up, I guess. See you later."

As one guard exited the booth next to the jail's main gate the other entered, the entering guard turned his attention towards a pitch-black area on the west side of the jail complex. For just a split second, a jagged arc of blue lightning whizzed across the field, and then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

The new guard on duty smirked and got to work.

* * *

"Toad, of all the dumb, idiotic things you've asked—"

"Aw c'mon Wanda, y'know I'm right. I mean, what's the national obesity rate, somethin' like fifty percent? Yet I just realized I don't think I ever seen a girl 'round here younger 'n forty that was fat."

"Man, you better be glad Freddy's in his own special cell," Pietro smirked, shaking his head, "You'd have been a pancake on the wall five seconds ago if he wasn't."

"Seriously, don't you guys think there's somethin' up with that?" Toad continued.

* * *

"You in position?" the new guard on duty murmured into a tiny microphone hidden in the nape of his uniform.

"Ready."

"Good. John, get going."

Turning his attention to the well-lit parking lot, the guard saw the person he had just replaced get into a red SUV and start to back out of his parking space. Suddenly, a huge plume of fire shot out of the darkness at the edge of the parking lot a few yards from the SUV. Within a split second, the plume hit the SUV and the vehicle exploded into a huge fireball, illuminating the entire lot and much of the jail yard as well.

Cackling insanely, Pyro kept feeding the explosion with his arm-mounted flamethrowers. Within seconds, a monstrous, minotaur-like flame creature emerged from the flames rising above the SUV wreckage, snorting fire as it roared an unearthly howl into the night.

* * *

"So, what, you're complaining?" Lance said, rolling his eyes.

"Nah, I'm just sayin'… What, doesn't this matter to anyone else?"

"NO," Wanda, Lance, and Pietro all said in unison.

"Aw… well, hey, whatever, I'm just sayin', yo… Maybe it's somethin' in th' water supply or somethin'… Guess I'll check tomorrow, ain't nothin' else t' do…"

"And how exactly would you CHECK something like that, Toad?" Wanda snorted.

"Well, I—"

Just then, alarm klaxons started blaring through the jail hallways.

"Attention: All Personnel," came a warning over the hallway intercoms. "This is a priority alert. Listen to your two-way radios for further instructions."

"Hey, what's goin' on?" Toad asked, hopping out of his bed and over the bars, looking out of their cell as dozens of guards scrambled past them. With so many of them talking, combined with the orders many of them were receiving from their personal two-way radios, it was impossible to pick out what any single one of the guards were saying as they ran past. Toad noticed that only a skeleton crew was staying behind to keep watch over their cells. "Honeybuns, you doin' something?"

"Don't look at me," Wanda replied, "My hands are still up locked tight in these stupid chafing cuffs."

"Three guesses who it is, then," Lance said, as he and the others got up from their bunks and peered out of the bars as well, trying and failing to get any more information as to what was going on.

"Mystique?" Toad said, "Nah, too early to tell, it could just be a rowdy prisoner tryin' to escape or somethin'…"

As soon as Toad finished his sentence, all of the lights flickered and then went dark.

"Okay, it's Mystique."

* * *

Pyro laughed as the huge flame minotaur took a swipe at the ever-growing crowd of armed guards. Whenever any guards tried to make his way around the flame creature and towards Pyro, he merely made the minotaur snort a plume in the direction of the guards, either cutting the guards off if they were careful or frying them on the spot if they were too reckless.

A few guards stupidly fired their guns at the flame creature, though of course their bullets had no effect. Out-of-control prisoner riots, they could handle. However, nothing in their training had prepared them for huge flaming minotaur attacks.

Mystique, meanwhile, had morphed into a crow and stood perched on top of the jailyard gate, enjoying the show. Normally, the infrared security cameras monitoring the parking lot would have noticed Pyro long before he was close enough to fry the SUV and its occupant—however, as the guard on duty she had quickly cut the feed of the cameras off at her booth where they were normally then routed to the main jail complex. Of course, to keep the personnel oblivious until the time was right, she had then input fake static images she had prepared earlier into the feed.

Of course, the flaming minotaur was just a distraction. Any minute now, the real fun would begin.

A couple of seconds later, the power went out across the entire prison complex—even the backup emergency power—and now the only sources of light were the flaming creature in the parking lot and a new, quickly-growing orb of electricity on the roof of the main building in the complex.

Ah. Speaking of when the fun would arrive…

* * *

A blue-haired female Mutant stood in the middle of the huge growing ball of blue electricity. It crackled all around her, scorching the roof under her and often lancing right through her body, but it didn't faze her at all. In fact, that ball of electricity was coming from her—or, rather, her hands, which were covered in metal gauntlets.

Although she her eyes had been clenched shut in concentration as she sucked the last of the power from the smashed generators into her gauntlets, her eyes suddenly opened up, small bolts of blue lightning lancing out from them. Turning towards where the giant flaming creature was distracting the guards, she pointed her gauntlets at the largest group. She noticed Pyro back away from his position behind the minotaur in anticipation. She couldn't talk to either Mystique or Pyro anymore—her comlink was completely fried now—but they all knew what the plan was.

Grunting, she directed the vast majority of the power she had just absorbed out of her gauntlets. A giant bolt of lightning fifteen feet across arched towards the largest group of guards, and a second later all that was left in their place was a large smoking patch on the ground. Scared out of their wits and confused as to what was happening, surrounded by a giant flaming mythological creature on one side and a person that shot lightning on the other, the few remaining guards in the parking lot outright panicked and fled in every direction, ceasing to care about protecting the jail complex anymore.

That part of her job finished, the blue-haired Mutant channeled the remaining energy into her legs and zoomed at a superhuman speed down off of the roof.

* * *

"Stand back," a muffled voice commanded from behind the back wall of the Brotherhood's cell, reaching their ears through the tiny barred window near the ceiling.

"Wh-"

Before Lance could finish asking his question, a blast of electricity burst into the cell, shattering a hole in the wall and sending small chunks of the wall flying.

"Ow," Toad winced as a couple chunks hit him in the head and chest.

"I told you to stand back," said a blue-haired female as she stepped into the cell, a smirk on her face.

"Yeah, thanks for giving us a FAIR WARNING," Lance said, looking like he was going to smack the newcomer but restraining himself for obvious reasons.

"Hey, you!" called out a guard from the dark hallway, running over to the cell door and pulling out a gun. "Stop right there!" From the sounds further down the hallway, other guards in the area were making their way towards them as well, but at a slower pace than usual due to the pitch blackness inside and the minimal moonlight filtering in from outside.

"Just a second," the newcomer said quickly before sending a quick, tiny jolt of lightning lancing through the chains connecting Wanda's handcuffs. Free at last, Wanda flexed her hands and lifted them up just as the guard fired his gun. The bullet stopped at the bars and reversed direction, the guard just barely managing to duck out of the way in time.

"Alright, I've spent practically all of my charge," the blue-haired Mutant said, backing out of the cell as other guards came up, also firing their guns. Wanda kept the rest of the Brotherhood safe as she hexed all the bullets back at the guards until they caught on and gave up on trying to stop the Mutants from escaping. "Everyone, follow me, we're meeting up with the others elsewhere. I've already freed Blob, he's waiting for us at the rear gate, after… dealing with the guards back there."

"Alright, she got Freddy out too!" Toad said happily, hopping up and down. Suddenly stopping, he asked suspiciously, "You're with Mystique, right?"

Rolling her eyes, the newcomer answered, "Yes, of course. Now come on, the jailyard won't stay this deserted for long!"

The rest of the Brotherhood followed her out of the hole in the wall, Toad stopping and turning around to give the guards on the other side of the bars a goodbye raspberry. He almost got his tongue shot off for his trouble.

* * *

"There they are," the blue-haired girl said, pointing a metal-covered arm at the dark silhouettes of Mystique and Pyro waiting next to a presumably stolen tour bus parked on a dirt road a few yards away from the bank of the river, which was partially frozen this time of year. A medium-sized black box was on the ground next to Mystique, though they weren't able to determine what, if anything, the box held because it was so dark.

"Man, about time!" Blob complained. "It feels like we've been running for hours, I need to sit down already!"

As the two groups of Mutants met up on the banks of the river, Mystique nodded to the blue-haired girl, who nodded back. Blob plopped down on the ground with a thump while the rest of them stood around Mystique and Pyro.

"Dangit, why do you guys get the coats?" Toad shuddered, motioning to the clothes Mystique and Pyro were wearing. "Geez, it's freezin'! Why'd you guys have to plan this rescue in mid-December, anyway?"

"Consider it an early Christmas present, you undeserving clod," Mystique fired back.

"If y' want, I can warm y' up, mate," Pyro grinned, firing a short burst out of his flamethrower tubes for emphasis.

"Pyro, keep the flames to yourself right now," Mystique scolded, "I don't want you sending signal flares up to anyone who might be searching for us."

"Right, sorry. Got carried away."

"What's going on here, anyway?" Lance said, stepping forward.

"Yeah, what's he doing here!?" Pietro said, pointing at Pyro.

"Why, I thought you'd be happy to see me, mate—after all, aren't we on the same team anyways?"

"No, I'm with—I mean, uh—"

"I convinced Pyro to join us," Mystique said. "After a while, he got tired of living in an empty base and finally left a few weeks before Magneto and I were freed from Apocalypse's control. While I was tracking her down--"—here Mystique motioned toward the new female in the group—"—Pyro contacted me via his own efforts and asked to join. After ascertaining that he was being honest and not doing it just to spy on us for Magneto, I let him."

"Yeah, I tried th' old coot. Liked his ideas, really did," Pyro said, stretching, "But he was way too demandin', mates. No one on his team had any sense of humor! You guys seem to be more fun."

"What about her, then?" Lance said, pointing to the other new recruit. He had been looking her over cautiously while Mystique had been talking—he guessed her to be about seventeen or eighteen, slightly older than Wanda. Her straight, chin-length hair was dyed bright electric blue, and she looked to be of Asian descent. She was also fairly tall, just an inch or two shorter than Jean Grey. She was wearing what was apparently her uniform, which was a light blue top that was short enough to expose her midriff, and fairly baggy blue jeans. In traditional Brotherhood style, she also had light gray shoulder pads. What really caught Lance's interest, though, were the metal gauntlets she wore on the lower half of each arm. When he had first seen her break through the cell wall, they were crackling with energy, but now they seemed to be bereft of any charge.

"That's Noriko Ashida, who has taken the codename Surge," Mystique answered.

"Yeah, that's real nice," Toad interjected. "Hey, can we maybe continue this conversation inside that bus? Maybe with the heater cranked all th' way up?"

"I had heard… reports… of her shortly after leaving Egypt, and quickly made my way to Japan to seek her out," Mystique continued, ignoring Toad. "Luckily for us, she has visited America several times before and is very fluent in English. Now, she's a permanent resident of this country."

"So, why all the recruiting suddenly?" Pietro asked. "Aren't we enough?"

"You should know the answer to that question by now," Mystique glared. "With Robert Kelly taking his place as the new mayor of Bayville in less than a month, I have no doubt he'll overstep his bounds and go after us any way he can. We have to be ready, and we have to be prepared."

"Yeah, I'm sure we'll become a formidable fighting force, capable of beating everyone and everything," Pietro said, feigning a yawn. "Didn't you say that the last time you showed up unexpectedly? How long did THAT last, two weeks?"

Pietro yelped as Wanda hexed a small rock to hit him in the back of the head. Pyro burst out laughing.

"We got distracted by other things then, which I'm sure you're quite aware of, Pietro," Mystique growled. "And thank you for reminding me that we need to take care of another problem… namely, YOU. I don't take to traitors very well."

"Yeah, well… byethanksfortellingme!" Pietro said, waving before taking a step backwards and then zooming off down the bank of the river before any of the others could react.

"Aw, man, I HATE it when he does that…" Blob said.

"Surge, get him—I made sure to scavenge this before we left the parking lot," Mystique smirked, picking up and handing over the black box, which was actually a car battery, to the blue-haired girl. "Just make sure not to kill him—I want Magneto to know that I'm back."

"Aw, you just took all the fun out of the chase," Noriko grinned as she put one of her fingers into the battery's coil, closing her eyes to concentrate. Suddenly, blue bolts of electricity leapt out of the battery and into her gauntlets, causing all of the others standing except Pyro and Mystique to step back in surprise.

"Hey, what's going on?!" Lance asked.

A few seconds later, all of the spare energy from the battery had been absorbed into Surge's gauntlets. Channeling it into her legs, she took off after Pietro—who was now almost over the horizon—at a far faster pace then even Pietro could run, a large trail of electrical energy following her as she sped across the landscape.

"So, uh… bus? Heater? Please?" Toad pleaded.

* * *

Pietro grinned. Yeah, okay, so he was out of the Brotherhood… again… but they were a bunch of losers anyway, and he had just gotten away scot-free for the second time. Just wait'll Magneto learned that Pyro had joined Mystique's team, his father would be out for blood…

A bolt of electricity suddenly impacted the ground right in front of him. Pietro was barely able to avoid it even with his fast reflexes.

"Hey! What the--?" Pietro asked, before turning his head around to see where the bolt had originated from.

"WhatcanIsay? Iwasonthetrackteamintheninthgrade," Surge said, grinning maliciously, her glowing blue eyes throwing out sparks of electricity. She was talking almost as fast as she was running, though apparently not on purpose.

"How--?"

Before Pietro could finish his sentence, Surge had already caught up to him. Taking a leap ahead, she put her foot out in front of him. Pietro, still not quite sure what was going on, wasn't able to react in time and tripped over her foot at two hundred miles an hour. Crying out in pain as he tumbled head over heels, Pietro rolled down the rocky bank into the river below, hitting the icy cold water with a huge splash.

Stopping to watch Pietro's scraped and bleeding head burst above water, gasping for air, Noriko charged up her gauntlets, ready to let a big bolt sail into the river.

"Oh, wait… she said _not_ to kill him… right," Noriko said to herself, frowning.

"Go ahead and run home to your daddy!" she yelled at Pietro, who was staring at her in a mixture of disbelief and hated. "Be sure to tell him what a pathetic failure you've been… and not for the first time either, I hear!"

With that said, she took off back down the bank in the direction she had come.

* * *

The rest of the Brotherhood watched Surge speed back towards them. Despite the fact that the fight—such as it was—had taken place much further away than they could have seen, she had been gone for barely a minute. Although she was still running far faster than any normal human could have, she was moving noticeably slower than she had been when she first took off after Pietro. By the time she reached where the others were waiting, she only running about three times as fast as a normal person could run.

"Wow, she can even outrun Pietro!" Toad exclaimed.

"So long as I have a big enough charge," Surge explained, panting. "I used up most of it just catching up to him."

"Mystique, what's going on?" Wanda asked, confused. "Yes, Pietro was working with our father, but Magneto's on our side, and… wait…"

Mystique sighed. "Yes, that reminds me. I wish I could say I am surprised that those three bumbling idiots never told you, but sadly that's not the case. If nothing else, Magneto certainly knew how you three would react to Mastermind's mind wipe—by not telling her like the cowards you are."

"Oh boy, here it comes…" Blob mumbled.

"Wanda," Mystique said, her tone noticeably softer all of a sudden, "Don't you remember? Magneto—the father that you supposedly love so much—kept you in a mental hospital since you were seven until just last year, when _I_ got you out!"

"W-what!?" Wanda gaped. "N-no, that's not true! How could you say something like that!? He's been everything I could ask for in a father!"

Mystique noticed Wanda's eyes shifting from person to person, however. Realizing that Wanda clearly wasn't as sure of herself as she let on, Mystique decided to continue with the mental prodding.

"Oh, really? You think I'm lying. Think, Wanda. Do you have any gaps in your memory from the last year? Anything that doesn't quite fit together? Magneto had his lackey Mastermind wipe your mind so that you'd THINK he had been a good father so you'd leave him alone."

"No! How can you— Is she…?" Wanda left the question unfinished, looking at Lance, Fred, and Todd, wanting any kind of confirmation that her childhood memories were genuine. All three looked away sheepishly whenever she fixed her eyes on theirs.

"So then it's--- no, it can't be—it's not…" Wanda suddenly stopped stuttering and looked down for a few seconds.

Suddenly, her head thrust back up, her eyes locked on Mystique's. All the hatred, all the rage that had been gone from Wanda's face for the last nine months had suddenly reappeared, stronger than ever.

"I'LL KILL HIM!" Wanda shrieked, the already brown dormant blades of grass under her dying and disintegrating in fast-motion. "No, I won't just kill him, I'll make his death SLOW and PAINFUL—"

"Hey, now, babycakes—" Toad started, stepping forward.

"SHUT UP ALREADY, YOU DISGUSTING INSECT!" Wanda roared, hexing a shrieking Toad into the freezing river. "YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME!"

"Save that rage and use it later," Mystique said, her expression and tone back to normal. "Everyone, into the tour bus. We've got a lot to do."

Lance, Pyro, Noriko, and Fred followed Mystique wordlessly into the bus. Wanda cursed loudly and hexed a nearby tree into a twisted, blackened nightmarish shape, then managed to control her rage enough to stomp after the others. Only after she had stepped into the bus did Toad dare slosh out of the river, shivering frantically.

"A—aw, m-man… n-now I ain't j-just gonna g-get f-frostbite, I'm gonna g-get sick, t-too… If they th-think I spit up e-enough s-slime now, just w-wait…"

* * *

"Well, this isn't good…" Scott said, plopping the daily newspaper into the middle of the breakfast table, pointing to the main headline. It read, " COUNTY JAIL MASSACRE, OVER 40 DEAD, INJURED—BROTHERHOOD OF BAYVILLE MEMBERS ESCAPED, OTHER MUTANTS LIKELY CULPRITS"

"Oh, my gosh…" Kitty gasped, putting her hands over her mouth.

Ray cursed under his breath.

"So they're back, zen?" Kurt asked, picking up the paper to read the details. "I didn't think the Brotherhood could do something zis bad…"

"Seriously, why do we even bother putting them in jail?" Rogue asked. "You just knew they were going to break out sooner or later. I say we just beat 'em into a coma and be done with it."

"Well, I do have to admit, I thought Mystique had given up on the Brotherhood," Professor Xavier said, sighing. "It's been over a year since she was last with them, and given her extreme distaste for all of its members except Wanda, and now with the destruction of their home, I couldn't see her picking up where she had left off after this long of a hiatus. I… should have been more cautious. After all this time, Mystique must have very elaborate plans indeed…"

"You're right," Kurt said, his eyes fixed on the newspaper article. "She probably had help breaking out the other Brotherhood members from jail. According to zis, a large fire creature—"

"Pyro," Logan growled.

"--and a Mutant with electrical attacks were responsible for nearly all of ze deaths," Kurt finished.

"E-electrical attacks?" Cessily gulped.

"Why, what about it?" Kurt asked.

"Mercury conducts electricity very well," Hank explained.

"Oh… right."

"That must be a new Mutant we're as yet unaware of," Xavier said. "I can only assume Mystique has been busy recruiting again. Everyone, be extra cautious outside the Mansion—Mystique is likely to have something serious planned indeed."

To be continued…


	2. Chapter 2

"The Brotherhood Means Business, Part II"

by Beastbot

"Here's where you're going to be staying for the foreseeable future," Mystique told her subordinates as she pulled up the stolen tour bus to a rotting old barnhouse surrounded by overgrown farmland, several miles outside Bayville's city limits.

"THAT'S where we're living?" Lance said. "You've gotta be kidding me! It barely even has a roof!"

"First off, if I hear you complain again I'll make sure you have a nice, cozy jail cell for a room instead, seeing as how you were the one who WRECKED my previous house," Mystique threatened as she stepped out of the tour bus and into the field, the snow on the tall weeds brushing off and dampening everyone's clothes as they followed her.

"Aw, great, more cold water… just when I was starting to get dry…" a shivering Toad mumbled, right before sneezing out a stream of slimy snot onto the ground.

"And secondly," Mystique continued as they entered the barn's rotting husk of an interior, "You give me far too little credit."

Moving towards the only part of the barn that didn't look like it was going to cave in any second, Mystique carefully pushed aside an old crate—revealing, to everyone else's surprise, a staircase that descended down below ground level about a dozen feet and stopped in front of a heavy metal door.

As the others caught up with her, astounded, Mystique walked down the stairs and pressed her palm into the appropriate indentation in the front of the door. After a few seconds, a computerized voice responded with a "Welcome," and the door slid open. Mystique motioned like she was going to step through the door, but then suddenly stopped and turned around.

"Blob, before you follow us into our new headquarters, I need you to go back out and dispose of the tour bus. The authorities are no doubt looking for us, and a bus sitting out in the middle of nowhere will attract unwanted attention."

"Uh… dispose of it?" Blob asked, scratching his head. "Where? You want me to drive it down to a junkyard or something?"

"No, you imbecile!" Mystique snarled. "Use your imagination, for once! Smash it into a ditch somewhere, crush it down and use it as a paperweight, shove it into your mouth like everything else you come across! Just get rid of it!"

"Huh, it WOULD be cool to have a bus paperweight…" Blob said to himself as he walked back towards the bus while the others went inside of the new Brotherhood headquarters.

"I don't suppose I need to bother asking where you got the money for all this?" Lance asked.

"No, you don't," Mystique said.

* * *

"Man, this is place is something else," Noriko said, still looking around as she plopped down on a sofa next to Lance and Fred, who was fiddling with his new crushed-bus paperweight, which was only about a foot wide.

"Heh, yeah, especially compared to our old dump," Fred said, his eyes never leaving his new cube-shaped plaything.

Lance, still steamed at Mystique's treatment of him earlier, had to admit that Fred was right—although their new place wasn't quite at the level of the X-Men's facilities, it was far, far better than their old house. For one thing, the thing was incredibly well-kept—Mystique must have hired a maid or something to stop by every now and then to keep the place clean, with extra pay to keep their mouth shut, of course. Then there were the actual rooms—Mystique had clearly thought of everything. There was a workout room, a training room complete with dummy X-Men, individual rooms for each of the members (and a few more rooms to spare, in case of more new recruits), a well-stocked kitchen, a neat dining room—the works. The only thing Lance didn't like about it was that there was only one small TV—clearly Mystique didn't care too much about what they did during their off-time. Well, that and the fact that the place had no personality to it whatsoever—almost everything was colored a drab gray.

"Old dump?" Noriko asked, "What happened to it?"

"Long story short, we were attacked by a bunch of jerks using some special Mutant-killing formula, and in the process our house collapsed," Lance explained.

"Because of you," Fred said off-handedly.

"Yeah, because of me," Lance growled, elbowing Fred in the stomach. Naturally, Fred didn't even flinch.

"Doesn't sound like you miss it much anyway," Noriko said, taking off her gauntlets and placing them on the table in front of her.

"Woah! Hey!" Lance said. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not if I put them back on within a few hours," Noriko said, flexing her wrist. "Now and then I just need to get the darned things off—they're so bulky and they cramp up my hands after a while."

"So how'd you get those things, then?" Fred asked. "Who made 'em for you?"

"Mystique," Noriko answered. "Well, not Mystique, one of her 'contacts,' I guess. I don't know exactly who, she just showed up one day and—well, I guess I better start earlier than that, otherwise that part wouldn't make any sense."

"Go ahead, I'm not going anywhere," Lance said, leaning back into the couch. "It's nice to actually be able to sit on something _comfortable _for the first time in a few months."

"Anyways, when my powers manifested about a year ago, I didn't realize it for several hours afterwards," Noriko started. "You see, the way my powers normally work is that I slowly take in static electricity from my surroundings. Depending on the environment, it takes me anywhere from a few hours to half a day to build up a full charge. My gauntlets help to store that excess energy and let me fire it off whenever I want to. Before I had them, well… I would discharge all that extra electricity all at once. Explosively."

"So then, the first time you discharged your energy…" Lance started.

"It wasn't a pretty picture," Noriko said, lowering her gaze to the floor. "I blew up my house, and my parents with it."

"Aw, man… I'm sorry," Fred said.

"Don't worry about it," Noriko said, lifting her gaze back up to meet Fred and Lance's, "My parents were ultra-strict, know-it-all jerks, anyways." Her tone, however, betrayed her real feelings on the subject.

"So after that happened, I panicked and ran away," Noriko continued, "since I knew the police would be after me for murdering my own parents. I knew they wouldn't believe that it was an accident, so I high-tailed it to the nearest unpopulated area I could find. Thing is, every couple of hours I would discharge all of that electricity again, and I hadn't learned how to channel it into extra speed yet, so it made me VERY easy to trail. Within a week they had found me, and locked me up in a maximum-security prison. After I blew apart the first cell I was put in, they kept me out in the jailyard, several guns pointed at me constantly, for a few days while they quickly lined a cell with some kind of material that could absorb and ground electricity. I was forced to live in there for about nine months, until Mystique showed up, having worked her way into the prison that she seems so apt at doing. She promised me a way to control my powers, in return for my allegiance to her cause. Heck, even if she didn't offer me these gauntlets, I probably still would've taken her up on her offer. She makes the most sense of any adult I've listened to in a long time. Screw the humans, always pushing us around when we're the ones with powers."

"Amen to that," Lance said, and Fred nodded as well.

"Attention everyone," Mystique's voice said via the speakers located throughout the base, "Meet me in the front room in five minutes, and DON'T doddle! It's time to reveal to you what we're going to do next."

"Aw, we have a comlink system, too! That's so cool!" Fred exclaimed.

"Good thing we're already IN the front room," Lance said. "That way I don't have to get up from this couch."

* * *

"So, what's the plan?" Noriko asked.

"I hope it doesn't involve running around a lot… is it chilly in here or is it just me?" Todd moaned, shivering, his face a little paler than normal.

"In short, we're going to attack the X-Men," Mystique said, crossing her arms and smiling.

"Awww…" Toad said, burying his face in his hands. "That's not what I wanted to hear."

"Uh, I think you're getting a bit TOO caught up in this whole 'New Brotherhood' thing," Lance protested. "I mean, yeah, we got a new base and two new teammates, but there's still no way we can take down all the X-Men! There's too many of 'em!"

"Normally, I would agree with you," Mystique admitted, "But I want to show dear Charles that we're—or, rather, YOU'RE-- no longer a bunch of misfits that they can just swat away. You forget that Christmas is just a week away, Avalanche. In just three more days, the vast majority of the X-Men will be leaving the Mansion to go home and spend the week with their families. We're going to make sure that never happens.""Oh, this is gonna be good, mates," John chuckled, rubbing his hands together.

"Quite simply, this is how I've discovered the X-Men are divided come Christmas Break—Cyclops, Rogue, Beast, and Xavier stay at the X-Mansion. Wolverine drives off by himself. We don't need to worry about them. The rest of the X-Men squeeze themselves into the X-Van and two other cars, then drive off in different directions to either drive their occupants home if they live nearby or drop them off at the airport or train station. We'll wait long enough for the cars to be far enough away from each other—ten minutes after they leave the Mansion should be enough—then we'll attack the car heading towards the airport and try to take out as many of the X-Men as we can. We'll be too far away from the others for any other reinforcements to arrive before we're finished. If you all actually follow my orders this time, we should be able to either capture or eliminate enough of the X-Men to send Xavier a VERY powerful message."

"I like it," Noriko smirked.

"Told ya it was gonna be good," John laughed.

"It still seems like a long shot," Lance admitted.

"It won't in three days," Mystique said, getting right in Lance's face, "Because the next three days all of you will be training harder than you've ever trained in your life. You WILL be ready for this."

Todd started to moan loudly, but was interrupted by an oncoming sneeze.

* * *

"Man, I hate this part of the year," Rogue grumbled as she waved good-bye to the departing X-Men from the front steps of the X-Mansion.

"Aw, c'mon, it's Christmas," Scott said, nudging Rogue good-naturedly. "It's supposed to be one of the best times of the year."

"Yeah, but it's so boring around here with everyone else gone," Rogue said as they turned around and walked behind Hank and Xavier through the Mansion's front doors. "I mean, we got lucky last year since we were able to go to New York to look for Angel and all, but that ain't gonna happen every year."

"Hey, at least we don't have to deal with Bobby for a whole week," Scott grinned.

"That's true," Rogue smiled.

* * *

Mystique watched carefully through her binoculars while Scott, Rogue, Hank, and Xavier all went inside the X-Mansion as the three cars exited the Mansion grounds and went off in different directions. Satisfied, she lowered her binoculars, took a quick look around the water tower to make sure no one else had discovered her presence up here, then opened her comlink channel and spoke into it.

"Alright, they're leaving. Our target vehicle is Xavier's limousine, heading north along 52nd Street. The X-Men that entered the vehicle before it left were Magma, Wolfsbane, Mercury—"

"_Wait, who's Mercury_?" Blob's voice came back over the comlink, interrupting her.

"Did you LISTEN at all when I mentioned the changes with the X-Men recently!?" Mystique growled. "She's the silver-skinned girl. Just… stay away from her, Blob, your powers are useless against her. Anyways, getting BACK to what I was saying before, the Mutants in the vehicle are Magma, Wolfsbane, Mercury, Jubilee, Sunspot, and Nightcrawler, and Colossus is driving. We're outnumbered, but only slightly. Surge, follow it, and make SURE you keep out of sight. And only just keep it within your sights—make sure not to use up all of your charge before the actual fight. Notify us when they turn onto Kirkland Street."

"_Gotcha,_" came Noriko's voice over the comlink. "_Following now_."

Satisfied, Mystique turned off her comlink, morphed into a hawk, and flew off the roof in the general direction of the limousine.

* * *

Toad nearly jumped as the comlink went off.

"_The car's turning onto Kirkland now, guys_," Noriko said over the comlink. "_I'm heading back to my position. Get ready._"

"Ugh. We gotta do this now?" whined Toad. "It's gotta be below zero out here. And I feel like I gotta puke. Let 'em have Christmas, we'll just get 'em on Secretary's Day or somethin'. Oh, I'm sorry, _Administrative Professionals_ Day."

"Shut up already and deal with it, or I'll make sure you feel a lot worse in a few minutes," the Scarlet Witch growled, standing up and looking over the edge of the rooftop they were on to see the limo make its way down the street towards them. "Here they come. Lance, are you ready?"

Avalanche nodded and flexed his fingers, then got to work on the street directly in front of them.

* * *

Piotr yelled for everyone to hold on as a crevasse suddenly opened up in the Earth's crust about a dozen yards ahead of them. All the other cars nearby swerved towards the sides of the road, the unluckier ones crashing into the sides of buildings or fire hydrants.

"Avalanche!" Kurt said in quick realization as Piotr slammed on the brakes and swerved his steering wheel right, towards an empty parking lot off of the side of the road. To everyone's surprise, however, the car didn't brake or swerve, but kept on going right towards the crevasse.

"W-what d-do we d-do?!" Cessily said hurriedly, panicking.

"Kurt, port us, now!" Piotr yelled.

"Got it!" Kurt said, grabbing the dashboard with both hands and concentrating. They suddenly appeared in the empty parking lot, though they were still going at their normal speed.

"That must have been Wanda—that means that the whole Brotherhood must be here," Piotr said to everyone else as he opened up the car door on his side. "Everyone, open up your doors! Get ready to jump out!"

"Hey, let me help!" came a familiar voice from directly in front of them. Looking forward, the X-Men all saw Blob standing a short distance in front of the car, a grin on his face. For the car occupants, it went without saying that the Brotherhood had expected them to teleport the car here, and were waiting for them.

However, instead of just standing there and letting the car slam directly into him, Blob instead stepped to one side and waited the half-second it took for the car to go by him. Right after the front half the limo passed him, Blob punched his hand through the side of the limo with a grunt. As the limo suddenly came to a screeching halt, Rahne, who was seated on the side of the limo Blob had punched his hand through, lurched forward from the sudden stop and slammed her head right into Blob's fist. Her nose smashed and bleeding heavily, Rahne slipped back into her seat, slumped and unconscious.

"Rahne!" Amara yelled.

"That is IT!" Piotr growled, and changed into his steel form, busting through his seat belt and getting ready to leap out of the side of the limo. "You will not harm any more of Xavier's students, Blob! I will see to it personally!"

"C'mon, we've already seen you aren't as strong as me!" Blob said, lifting up the limo with the one hand he had punched through it. "And you won't be seeing _anythin_g but black in a second! Hey, that was a pretty good line, I'm gonna have to remember that one…"

Reaching back, Blob hurled the limo towards a building on the other side of the road.

"Kurt, again!" Piotr yelled.

Kurt nodded and gripped the dashboard again, porting the car a couple dozen yards back, where they slammed into Blob's backside.

"Woah… didn't think of that…" Blob admitted, grunting from the unexpected impact.

"X-Men, engage the enemy!" Colossus commanded as the limo occupants recovered from the impact and piled out of the vehicle, minus Rahne and Cessily. At the same time, most of the other Brotherhood members all emerged from various spots around the block where they had been hiding.

"I'll s-stay to help pr-protect Rahne," Cessily said, stretching her arm around the side of the limo and into the trunk and pulling out a first aid kit.

"You have gone too far this time, Blob!" Colossus yelled at Blob, who was cleaning the glass from the limo's crushed headlights off of his pants.

"The problem is, he hasn't gone far enough," Surge said, zooming up from the other side of the street in a split second and firing off a burst of electrical charge. Completely caught by surprise, Colossus took it directly in the chest and went down onto one knee, grunting from a smoking crater that had appeared there from the blast.

"Who… are you?" Colossus asked.

"Name's Surge, don't forget it," the blue-haired Mutant grinned. "Which shouldn't be too hard, seeing as how your life is going to end in a few minutes."

Charging up her gauntlets for another, larger blast, Surge didn't see Nightcrawler port directly behind her, grab her, and port again.

Blob wrenched himself free from the car bumper that had partially curved around his midsection and stomped towards Colossus, grinning.

"Oh no you don't!" Jubilee yelled, running up and positioning herself between Colossus and Blob. Before Blob could react, Jubilee unleashed a stream of her "fireworks" right into Blob's eyes. Grunting in pain, his eyes watering, Blob stumbled backwards, his hands covering his face.

"Got him!" Jubilee said, but no sooner had she finished the sentence than a loud rumble started under the ground. It quickly grew louder, and the parking lot under Jubilee and Colossus started to roll up and down in miniature waves. Colossus, easily being the heavier of the two, was able to keep his balance fairly well, but Jubilee landed flat on her rear and was unable to gain enough balance to enable her to stand up again. Avalanche unleashed another wave of force from his position on the other side of the parking lot, this time aimed at a lone tree planted near the sidewalk about a dozen feet from where Jubilee and Colossus were. His wave hit the tree at just the right angle, and it toppled over onto a screaming Jubilee. The tree wasn't nearly hefty enough to crush her to death, but the force of the blow clearly harmed her, as a trickle of blood started to run down from her forehead.

"Piotr---help me!" Jubilee grunted.

"I'm coming!" Colossus said, slowly making his wave through the now-unstable parking lot towards the trapped X-Man. Grunting, Colossus picked up the broken tree, freeing Jubilee from under it, and hefted it at Avalanche. The Brotherhood member leapt out of the way just before the tree collided with him, however, and escaped harm.

* * *

"Vhy are you doing zis?" Kurt asked as Surge broke free from his grip, the blue-haired girl clearly frustrated. Kurt had teleported them both onto the top of a building a block away. "Ze Brotherhood is bad news!"

"You're quick, Mutie, but not quick enough," Surge said, ignoring the question as she turned around in the blink of an eye and fired off a blast of electricity. Kurt just barely managed to teleport out of the way in time, to another spot on the roof.

"Apparently I am," Kurt grinned, shrugging his shoulders.

Cursing, Surge fired off another huge blast, but Kurt teleported out of the way again, this time back into the parking lot below.

Searching around for a few moments, Surge mumbled something unintelligible and was just about to run down the building's staircase and back into the battle when Kurt suddenly ported right behind her, this time a fully charged Sunspot with him.

"Surprise," Sunspot grinned, and decked Surge before she could react.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the parking lot below, Pyro was laughing manically as he slowly crept towards the X-Men protecting the limo and its two remaining occupants, a twenty-foot-high wall of flame keeping them from trying to attack him in retaliation.

"I'm the only one who can stop him—and the wall-- before he gets so close to the limo that the vehicle explodes," Magma said, flaring up into her flame form. "I'm immune to his fire, so I'm going in."

Magma gritted her teeth and ran into the flame wall.

As soon as she plunged into the flames, Pyro yelled out, "Now!"

Wanda came out from behind a thick tree a few yards to the left of Pyro and sent out a hexing bolt towards Magma. Suddenly, Magma screeched in pain and ran out of the wall of flames, on fire but this time actually being burned by the flames, since her powers were currently being nulled by Wanda's powers.

Kurt and Sunspot ported back down to the parking lot after taking care of Noriko and Kurt quickly directed Sunspot over to a nearby fire hydrant. Sunspot slammed his fist down onto the fire hydrant and a strong spray of water streamed in Magma's general direction. It doused the flames, but Magma collapsed to the ground, her clothes half-burnt and her skin covered in third-degree burns.

While Wanda and Pyro were distracted by what Sunspot and Magma were doing, Kurt quickly ported over Colossus behind Wanda, who in turn smashed his fist into another fire hydrant and directed the high-pressure spray towards Wanda and Pyro, who were both caught by surprise and took it directly in the face. This distracted them long enough for Colossus to run over and smash their heads together with a roar of fury, rendering the two Brotherhood members unconscious.

* * *

Cessily, who was in the process of bandaging Rahne's nose, involuntarily let out a short shriek as Toad suddenly dropped down onto the ground next to the limo.

"Hey, look, I don't want no trouble," Toad said, raising his hands in a defensive posture. "But I need to look like I'm doing something, and I feel like crud with the pneumonia and all, so to make it easier on both of us could you just—"

Toad was interrupted as Cessily stretched out her arm, socking Toad in the jaw with her fist.

"Fank foo," Toad mumbled, rubbing his swelling jaw, and collapsed to the ground a moment later.

* * *

Mystique surveyed the chaos below, circling overhead in her hawk form. Things weren't going quite as nicely as she had hoped, but certainly better than she had come to expect from her subordinates.

_Note to self: Focus on getting your students to work harder at paying attention to their surroundings, especially when they're fighting Kurt, _she thought, taking note of how Surge, Pyro, and the Scarlet Witch had been taken out of the picture. Toad had been knocked out by other means—big surprise there—but Lance was still fighting adamantly, even though he was outnumbered now, and Blob had rejoined the fray, having finally regained his eyesight.

Looking towards the X-Mansion in the far-off distance, her keen hawk eyes made out the XM Velocity helijet taking off from the launch pad, and she already heard myriad police sirens that were growing louder by the second. If they were going to end this little demonstration, the time was now.

She had wanted this little demo to end the life of at least one X-Man, but she supposed having four of them injured—three rather seriously—was enough for now, and would get the general message across to Xavier. Still, perhaps they could still take one as a hostage…

Setting her sights on the severely burnt, unconscious form of Amara, Mystique tucked in her wings and dove towards the battle below.

_Closer… closer…_ Mystique thought as the wind whipped by her feathers and the parking lot took up more and more of her vision.

_Now! _Mystique opened up her wings and flapped them as hard as she could, curving upwards and swooping over the battlefield just a few feet above the ground, causing Sunspot to roll to one side to get out of her way. Extending her talons, she gripped Amara firmly and flew upwards, over the top of a building on the other side of the street.

"Amara!" Colossus yelled.

Just as Mystique crested the top of the building however, she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her left wing as a flaming hot bone spike shot right through it. Screeching in pain, Mystique dropped Amara the five feet to the rooftop and morphed back into her normal form, clutching her shoulder.

"Argh!" Mystique growled, glowering down at Spyke, who had just emerged from the sewers and was aiming another bone spike at her. Out of all the Mutants to best her, it had to be that Morlock freak! "Avalanche, Blob, gather up the others and get out of here! I'll get Surge!"

Avalanche let loose a large wave of force at the X-Men, keeping them off their feet long enough for the conscious Brotherhood members to gather up their teammates and leave the scene.

* * *

"So much for a boring vacation, huh?" Cyclops asked, surveying the scene as he and Rogue helped Amara and Rahne onto the XM Velocity, which had landed in the middle of the parking lot.

"If this was the only other option, I would've preferred boring instead," Rogue said, a mix of anger and sadness in her voice as she and Scott went over to where the other X-Men were gathered, some of them talking to the authorities and others helping Colossus find the pieces that had been blown out of his chest—without them back in place, he couldn't go back into his normal form again without bleeding to death. "I've never seen the Brotherhood cause this kind of trouble before—even when we first met Wanda, none of us actually really got hurt. But the Prof says Amara's going to be hospitalized for at least three weeks, and Rahne and Jubilee, both with pretty bad concussions, aren't much better off."

Looking among the throng of Mutants, Cyclops recognized a face he didn't expect to find here.

"Evan! What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Are you kidding me?" Spyke said, walking up to Cyclops and Rogue. "You could hear this fight six blocks away! It wasn't hard to find out where it was coming from—I figured you guys probably needed help."

"Well, thanks," Cyclops said. "We appreciate it. Big time."

"No problem," Spyke said, "I just got here near the end of the fight, anyway. Man, this block's thoroughly trashed…. The roads are ruined, there's busting pipelines everywhere, the parking lot looks even worse than Bayville High's lot did after we had that fight there, back when I was still with you guys… Mystique really must've been pushing the Brotherhood hard to get them to do this much damage."

"She also added two new recruits to her team, from what Piotr has told us," said Beast, walking over and joining in on the conversation. "Pyro has defected from the Acolytes and joined the Brotherhood, apparently, and they've also recruited a new Mutant with electrical attacks named Surge."

"Well, whatever new purpose Mystique had for getting the Brotherhood back together," Rogue said, "It's obvious that the days of them just being a minor annoyance are over. It looks like Mystique's new Brotherhood means business."

The End


End file.
